Like a Father
by GenvieveWoolf
Summary: Isn't it odd how quickly Mutt hides his worry for Ox? There's a missing scene between the sanitarium and the tomb! This fic is father/son angst-fluff with some major irony concerning Indy and Mutt's relationship. One-shot. Slightly OOC, but in a funny way


_This is a missing scene from KotCS. It begins when Indy and Mutt leave the sanitarium. I thought it was way too easy for them to go from there to the cemetery without any searching around or anything. How did they know where to find it?_

_For those of you following my Harry Potter story, don't worry—I'm not giving up on it in favor of Indiana Jones. I just felt like doing this. :p_

_If I got anything wrong about the Spanish or the money, I apologize in advance—you may correct me in a review if you like. :)_

_PS I don't own Indy or Mutt. Alas._

**LIKE A FATHER**

Orellana's tomb was within reach—Indy was sure of it. After all these years, he (who'd have thought?) would be the one to find it. All they had to do was ask around a little and find the cemetery Oxley had sketched on his cell floor. And find some shovels, he supposed.

Indy glanced at his unlikely companion. Things could be better, of course. He could have a seasoned adventurer for his "sidekick." Someone like Salla. Even somebody not so adventurous, but with an appreciation for history, like Marcus Brody. But Salla was out of reach, and Marcus was _beyond_ out of reach, so Indy would have to make do...with "Mutt" Williams.

At least the kid had said he liked reading. That was something. And he could supposedly handle a sword, which was another thing. Perhaps he wasn't completely useless.

At the moment, Mutt was feasting his eyes on the Peruvian vendor carts. He must never have gotten out of the city before. The dust in the village seemed to irritate him, and once in a while he would take out his comb and ritualistically rake it through his would-be curly hair.

"Keep up, kid," Indy said pointedly. If he were alone, he knew he'd be much further along by now. But Mutt had to stop to gawk at things.

"I can keep up," Mutt retorted. "Just waiting for you to set a pace, old man."

That did it. At this point, Indy didn't care too much if he lost the kid in the crowd.

"Excuse me," Indy said in Spanish to a fabric vendor, "have you heard of a cemetery guarded by the living dead?"

The vendor's smile of salesmanship slipped for a moment. "If there is such a place, sir," he answered, "you would do well to avoid it."

"Was that normal Spanish?" Mutt asked in a loud whisper.

Indy shook his head. "No, it's Amazonian Spanish."

"Did you pick that up from Pancho Villa, too?"

"No, actually. I led an expedition in the Peruvian jungle once before, if you must know. I picked it up then."

Mutt frowned and blinked. "You travel a lot, huh?"

"I used to." Indy was about to move on when a small boy came from behind the stand of the man he had just questioned.

"Pardon me, _senor_," the boy said in heavily accented English.

"Yes?"

The boy lowered his voice. "I may know the place you look for."

"Well, all right," Mutt said enthusiastically. "Lead the way."

"Shut up," Indy told him. To the native boy he said, "Could you sketch it out for me?" The boy looked confused. "Draw a picture?" Indy clarified.

Apparently the boy recognized those words. "_Si._ Yes. Come." With that, he took Indy by the cuff and pulled him around behind a fruit stand. There he cleared gravel away from a place in the dirt and began scratching lines in the ground with a stick.

Mutt leaned over the boy as he worked, an action Indy detested.

"Give him space," Indy muttered.

Mutt backed off a little, but continued to stare. "Then," Mutt said, trying out his high school Spanish, "that is the place Orellana is dead?"

The boy scowled and answered in kind, "Your Spanish is worse than my English. We should stick to that."

Indy laughed.

"What?" Mutt said, looking a little hot under the collar. "_What_ did he say?"

Still chuckling, Indy replied, "He said you should leave the discussions to us."

"Right." Mutt pulled out his switchblade and began playing with it as if he couldn't care less that a ten-year-old had just insulted him.

The boy sat back from his drawing. Indy knelt beside him and studied the scratches. They were crude and childlike...but then, Oxley's drawings hadn't been much better. And many of the lines matched Indy's memory of the floor in the professor's cell.

"I think you're right, kid," Indy said, passing the boy a sol coin. He held his hands with the fingers up. "Ten more like that if you can tell us how to get there."

_"Si, senor,"_ the boy said, lapsing back into Spanish in his excitement. He wiped away the marks he had made before and began sketching again. "Our village," he announced, pointing at a rough rectangle. "This road—east." He scratched a few more lines. "Here."

Indy nodded. "So we take this path and it will get us to the cemetery_—el cementerio_," he said, making sure the boy understood.

The boy nodded vigorously.

"And you're sure that's the one?" Mutt asked, as if he was any authority. "Have you been there a lot?"

The boy shuddered. "I do not go there. You will not go there. If you want to live."

Indy counted out ten more sols. "_Gracias_."

The boy ran the money through his hands, his eyes shining.

"How much money is that?" Mutt asked.

"Oh, about...sixty cents. A little less."

"That's it? He looks so thrilled. That'll buy him...a couple of Cokes, maybe."

"They don't have Coke in a little Village like this. He'll make it stretch pretty far, though. The cost of living is low here."

"Depends on how you want to live," Mutt said grimly, staring at the poverty around him with a look of anxiety. "Here..." he fished in a pocket and produced a quarter. "It's American," he apologized as he handed it to the boy, "but I'm sure someone will take it."

The boy grinned at Mutt. "Thank you," he said.

"That's almost five sols," Indy told him in Spanish.

The boy tucked the quarter into a grubby little bag along with the other coins. "I have to go now," he said. "Thank you. Be careful."

.

.

They had the shovels. Now they just needed to get them to the site. How they were going to get an unwieldy shovel and spade several miles along a dirt road while riding double on a motorcycle was beyond Indy, but he didn't have time to gather the proper help and equipment.

"Hey," Mutt said as they walked back toward the motorcycle, "what did that kid mean when he said we wouldn't go there if we wanted to live?"

"In areas like this, people tend to be very superstitious," Indy said. "There are probably a lot of ghost stories connected with this cemetery. For instance, the 'guarded by the living dead' thing. There may be someone who guards the tomb, but I'll guarantee you it's no zombie."

"Right. So there could be someone waiting for us. Even if whoever captured the Ox isn't there already."

"I doubt they could be ahead of us. They took Ox away in a hurry—I don't think they bothered to look at the gibberish in his cell."

"Yeah." Mutt looked morose. "Man, he'd better be OK when we find him."

Sensing that Mutt might be in danger of losing his cool, Indy decided to change the subject. They had reached the bike and needed to figure out the best way to transport themselves and the shovels. "How do you want to do this?" Indy asked, gesturing toward the motorcycle.

Mutt took his seat in front as usual, gripping the handlebars as if they could recharge his energy. "Climb on and hang on," he muttered.

As Indy threw a leg over the back of the bike and tried to find a convenient way to hold the shovels, he noticed that Mutt was looking a bit deflated, his chin tucked as if he wanted to avoid eye contact at any cost.

"You OK, kid?"

Mutt sighed. After a moment he spoke, his voice husky. "Yeah. Sorry."

"That's all right." Indy was eager to get on with it, but if Mutt was going to be any good to him, he needed to be able to focus. Better to get this over-with.

"It's just that Ox is...." Mutt swallowed. "He was like a father to me. I don't remember my dad very much at all, really."

With an inward grimace, Indy recognized that this was one of those situations from which there was no easy escape. He could either wait for Mutt to regain control (which could take a while) or he could try to comfort him and risk making things worse (an intolerable possibility). _Blast_, he thought.

With the hand that was not overbooked with shovels, Indy reach up to give Mutt's arm a squeeze.

Mutt uttered a tiny sob.

_Blast_, Indy thought. _Blast, blast, blast_. "It's all right," he said through clenched teeth, all the while thinking, _Why me? Why? _He dropped the shovels and, cursing his fate, took hold of the teenager's other arm.

"I...I'm OK," Mutt said, but he wasn't fooling anyone. Especially not with the way he was sitting back so he was leaning against Indy.

_Oh, better and better,_ Indy thought bitterly. _This is not my calling._ Why couldn't this kid's mother have stayed home with him instead of chasing that clumsy Ox all over South America?

"Hey—there's no shame in crying," Indy lied. He knew he was a hypocrite, but the sooner this was over, the better. He would tell the kid what he wanted to hear.

"I know...my mom's told me that. But I still...I don't normally let this happen."

Great, so now Indy was dealing with _years'_ worth of angst.

"It's like my life is gone—I'm living someone else's now."

_Oh, the drama_, Indy thought. "We'll get him back. We'll find him, and your mom, too. You need to pull yourself together. For them." _How cheesy can I get?_ he wondered.

"Right. OK." Mutt took a deep breath. He sat up and pulled out the ever-present comb. A few quick strokes later he seemed ready to move on. "All right; let's go."

Indy gave him one last pat on the back, relieved that it was over, and gathered the shovels. He put his free arm around Mutt's waist and they were off.

.

.

The kid seemed determined to prove that he had learned _something_ in his limited education. Looking at a worn sign at the edge of the cemetery, he read, "Grave robbers will be shot."

"Good thing we're not grave robbers," Indy replied, tossing him the spade.

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_Enjoy it? Please review! :D_


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